Mexico’s newest drug cartel, and certainly the most bizarre, is La Familia Michoacana, a violent but Christian fundamentalist narco-gang based in the torrid Tierra Caliente region of western Michoacan state.

In Rialto, on old route 66 just outside Los Angeles, young Mexican Americans in sharp cars and glittery, cowboy-goth clothes are pouring into a hangar-size nightclub to hear El Komander sing. Brawny, buzz-cut and with a midnight pallor, El Komander looks as if a Mexican drug cartel might have sent him on a summer internship with the Russian mob.

Mexican soldiers found a seventh mass grave in Durango, Mexico, this week, and its location was as unexpected as the six before it. TIME was one of the first media at the scene on Thursday, May 19, as forensic officials descended on a white stucco house in the upscale Jardines de Durango neighborhood to unearth presumed drug-cartel victims buried in the garden

Has Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, been lost to the drug cartels? New figures released to CNN on Wednesday by Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz indicate the death toll for this year has already surpassed 2,000 homicides — almost 400 more murders than the total count for 2008.

Eduardo Ravelo is described as a “ruthless killer” who has gone to great lengths to avoid law enforcement while contributing to the bloodshed that terrorizes the border between Texas and Mexico. EL PASO, Texas (CNN) — Eduardo Ravelo is described as a “ruthless killer” who has gone to great lengths to avoid law enforcement while contributing to the bloodshed that terrorizes the border between Texas and Mexico

The number of drug-related killings in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, so far this year has reached 1,647, surpassing the death toll for all of 2008, a city spokesman told CNN. A spate of killings since the weekend, including 12 on Tuesday, pushed this year’s death toll higher than the 1,607 recorded murders for last year, spokesman Sergio Belmonte told CNN.

A Mexican man who was allegedly killed on orders from his own cartel believed they were hunting for him after he began working as an informant and was fearful for his life, according to court documents. Jose Daniel Gonzalez Galeana began to worry after he began working as an informant for immigration officials in the United States.